30 Elegant Vintage Halloween Decor Essentials
Tips and resources to create elegant Halloween decorations on a budget using secondhand vintage decor and antique style finds.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I don’t love the usual store bought Halloween decor.
The thought of filling my entire home with skulls and spiders and snakes honestly scares the living daylights out of me. (I know that’s the point, but I’m a wimp, okay? 😂)
But there is one little spot in our house I always decorate with spooky vintage Halloween decor: our entryway table. I mostly repurpose the vintage decor I already have with a few small spooky tweaks.
It’s the one spot trick-or-treaters see from our front door, and since it’s tucked in the foyer mostly out of sight from the rest of our house, I just avoid eye contact with it when I’m walking around in the dark at night. Seriously #MajorWimp
If I’m going to decorate my house for Halloween though, I want it to be the elegant gothic vintage Halloween decor kind: candelabras, ravens, spooky old portraits, old books, statues… all of the Edgar Alan Poe “Fall of the House of Usher” kind of vibes. Think burgundy, black and orange color palette.
The best part is you can reuse a LOT of this vintage Halloween decor sparingly in your every day decor (you know, minus the skulls and bats). Putting all of these vintage pieces together sets an elegant spooky mood.
And you can find so many of these pieces in thrift stores and antique shops!
Thrifted Vintage Halloween Decoration Ideas
I’ve mostly bought my vintage Halloween decor finds secondhand like the iron candelabra, silver tray, old books, antique picture frame, and ink well above from my entryway table two years ago.
How to Repurpose Vintage Decor to Look Spooky Inexpensively
- Use old dome clocks and remove the mechanical parts to make a spooky cloche with a black rose inside.
- Repurpose an old clock in a spooky setting.
- Print creepy vintage portraits to use in thrifted picture frames.
- Display an old typewriter with a haunting message written on the paper.
- Set out a vintage birdcage with a faux raven or owl inside.
- Write a creepy message like “Redrum” in red lipstick on a mirror.
- Put vintage looking potions labels on glass bottles from the recycling bin and fill them with whatever ingredients you already have in your kitchen.
- Set out secondhand leather bound books to look like a scene from a dusty old study. (Maybe you’ll get lucky finding a hardcover edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Bram Stoker’s Dracula.)
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Vintage Halloween Decorations to Look for at Thrift Stores
- Antique mirrors
- Vintage picture frames
- Candle holders / candelabras
- Lanterns
- Vases
- Busts / statues
- Trays
- Bowls
- Clocks
- Birdcages
- Typewriters
- Hardcover Books
- Cloches
- Apothecary jars
- Old keys
- Magnifying glasses
- Glass bottles
- Black fabric
- Shadow boxes
- Old portraits
30 Vintage Halloween Decor Essentials
There are so many inexpensive possibilities to pull off the look of elegant Halloween decorations you would find in a haunted house, many of them you might already have in your regular home decor stash.
But if you don’t have the chance to scour the antique shop aisles, these are some of the absolute BEST spooky vintage pieces to use.
Lifesize Crows | Veiled Bust | Black Flameless Taper Candles | Metal Candelabra | Antique Gold French Mirror | Black and White Vase | Faux Dried Burgundy Roses | Burgundy Berry Wreath | Kerosene Style Lamp | Hammered Footed Bowl | Orange Book Box | Brown Book Box | Mantel Clock | Black Antique Frame | Gold Antique Frame
Cloche Set | Black Lantern | Curly Willow Branches | Decorative Skull | Skeleton Keys | Plum Calla Lilies | Black Urn Planter | Vintage Halloween Art Prints | Black Gauze Cloth | Roman Bust | Set of Bats | Vintage Style Bottles | Vintage Style Potions Labels | Vintage Black Record Player
Free Vintage Halloween Printables
There are so many possibilities for using vintage art prints all around your house too. Here are some of my Halloween printables you can use for free to create a spooky vibe for a chic Halloween party.
Do you repurpose any of your regular home decor to make elegant Halloween decorations? Let me know! You can never have enough creative repurposed decor ideas.
